This scholarship honours the memory and legacy of Canadian writer and activist Candis Graham, through the Lambda Foundation, with an annual award for writing excellence at the University of Victoria.

Hosted By Lorna Crozier and the UVic Writing Department, this celebration will feature a tribute to Candis Graham by Jane Eaton Hamilton and a reading from the "always irreverent" Billeh Nickerson, to be followed by the presentation of the scholarship to it's first recipient, Arleen Paré. Reception to follow.

This scholarship is to be awarded at UVic on February 8th, 2007
From 7pm-8pm in the David Strong Building lecture hall C116.
University of Victoria directions

What makes this scholarship unique?

The Lambda Foundation is a federally incorporated charitable organization, dedicated to advancing education in Equality Rights by creating awards for Canadian universities, in programs of study and research related to equality.

Lambda Foundation National Scholarship Series in gay and lesbian studies is unique in Canada. By Lambda Foundation's negotiated agreement with the universities, each university selects appropriate candidates and their projects, based on academic merit and relevance to the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgendered (GLBT) community. There is no discrimination on the basis of sex, sexual orientation or any other grounds regarding the candidates, consistent with the Canadian Charter of Human Rights. That means anyone who is doing a graduate thesis or doctorate in the area of gay and lesbian studies is eligible to apply.

Lambda Foundation has deliberately allowed a broad scope for the scholarship series so that many graduate studies can qualify - arts, letters, social sciences and other sciences, and professional schools.

For more info or to donate to this ground-breaking scholarship fund, please go to: Lambda Foundation

Biography information:
Candis Graham was born on February 14th, 1949 in Kincardine, on the edge of Lake Huron, and lived most of her life in Ottawa. A writer of short fiction, she successfully moved into the genres of poetry, creative non-fiction, essays and novels, and edited innovative feminist writing. Her work has been widely anthologized. Her published books include Tea for Thirteen (1990), and Imperfect Moments (1993). In 1995 Candis began teaching writing in many different formats. On occasion, she would partner with a Yoga Instructor, creatively combining Yoga practices with practical literary instruction. She moved to Victoria, British Columbia in 2001 where she died on November 22, 2005.

For more information on Candis Graham please have a look at these websites:
candisgraham.com
Writers Union of Canada

 
Billeh Nickerson, a 1998 graduate of the UVic Department of Writing, is the author of The Asthmatic Glassblower, nominated for the Publishing Triangle Poetry Prize, and Let me Kiss it Better: Elixirs for the Not So Straight and Narrow. He is also co-editor, along with John Barton, of the forthcoming book Seminal: the Anthology of Canada's Gay Male Poets.

A founding member of the performance troupe "Haiku Night in Canada," he is the past editor of both "Event Magazine" and "Prism International," two of Canada's most respected literary journals. He lives in Vancouver, where he works as an event programmer for the Vancouver International Writers Festival and teaches Creative Writing at Kwantlen University College.

 The scholarship winner, Arleen Paré has graduate degrees in Social Work and Adult Education and is currently in Creative Writing at the University of Victoria. Originally from Montreal, she worked for over two decades in Vancouver in Social Services. Arleen has published in "Geist," "Contemporary Verse II" and "This Side of West." Her lyric prose novel, Paper Trail, is being released in April from NeWest Press.

Donations may be directed to:
Fund Manager, Candis Graham Writing Scholarship, Lambda Foundation Fund
University of Victoria, Development Office
Box 3060, Victoria, BC V8W 3R4
UVic email contact